VHHC run-through 4 years after last played

Nutshell: Started Torchlight again (straight into VH-HC mode), wanted to express my experience and how I approach things with other people, thus this.

Longer:
Basically I have recently re-installed Torchlight 1 after not playing for about 4 years (and only playing softcore normal) during which time I got hooked playing League of Legends which in turn re-kindled a competitive spirit in me but due to exterior conditions/situations wasn't able to pursue it and otherwise lead me to finding alternatives to satisfy me. I remember fond memories of Torchlight, thought a revisit would be good, and then noticed the difficulty and **** options which kinda propelled me to stalking this forum as I wanted to find out from other people how they approached this. In general I plan for a journal style approach with any input from other members as welcome.
I'm still going through the forum looking for bits and pieces that help.

I am running with a couple mods although I don't think they will impact the difficulty or 'vanilla' playthrough too much. These mods are:

My first character, a Destroyer, died level 6 mostly due to carelessness/inattention. Dealing aprox. 10 damage and taking aprox. 40 damage at level one was kinda disturbing and resulted in using ranged weapons with heavy kiting to make it through levels till death. This led to my looking at the Vanquisher in order to at least make it through early levels and as such has resulted in progress; I currently think, based on what I have read of character skills, that the Destroyer has the most potential of finishing the game due to Frost Shield, Titan Stomp and Chain Vortex with Titan Stomp and Chain Vortex providing AoE stun and knockbacks whilst Frost Shield has % damage reduction on physical and elemental abilities. However I'm having success with the Vanquisher so far.

So far the Vanquisher has reached character level 11 and beat Brink at clevel 10.
I have been keeping an eye out for very low level items, the occasional higher level item, and placing them in the shared stash to aid any low level characters get started. I've also thrown a chunk of low level maps into their incase I need to grind levels, gold or items with less fear of dying ...

The lack of information about how the game works has been a little peculiar even when searching this and other forums. I understand the basic mechanics but looking at determining which items are better has been a different challenge, eg, determining whether using a 146 DPS Rifle (slow speed) is better than 2 pistols at 82 (slow) and 60 (average) DPS respectively and which would give more damage to skills such as Ricochet ...
I've considered that maybe the approach should be that I should be switching between the two (Rifle for Ricochet damage and pistols for general DPS) but the speed at which the pistols fire at seems to be the same speed of the rifle and slower than Ricochet. Ricochet scales off weapon DPS but I was unable to find any conclusive information as to this being the cumulative DPS of the primary weapon equipped or all weapons equipped. Off my own experiments shooting ricochet at level 4 skeletons and alternating between a rifle and two pistols which showed the rifle turning out higher damage ranges than the pistols that skills based off weapon DPS look at the primary equipped weapon or in the case of pistols this would be the pistol equipped in the right hand.

Dual wield is only viable with a lot of +%Damage when dual wielding bonus, so yeah, stick to the highest-DPS things. At least that's my experience.

due to exterior conditions/situations wasn't able to pursue it

Inb4 noob overflood in ranked games lololol. I feel you.

Yea, the more I think about it and play around with it, the less viable it seems to be. High DPS weapons also have an added benefit of scaling better with skills ... or is that visa versa? ;o

As of this post, I have created 5 characters. The first died at level 6, as above. The second being the Vanquisher that I currently have at c-level 12. The third was another Destroyer that was doing well but in what I assume was a glitch was converted to a similar copy of the Vanquisher. The Fourth and Fifth are a Destroyer and Alchemist, both at level 1 and will get played when I feel like it.

Currently playing around with the Vanquisher c-lvl 12 in some low level maps, 1-10
Now I listed what I could determine from looking at the Character sheet, Inventory and Skills. I'm not sure why but when I look at the items and stats that I have I feel like they are underwhelming.
I feel that the stats I get my hands on need to be refined as much as possible.

I have 2 items that have +4% cast speed buff to them, I assume then that this becomes +8%.

If there's any item, skill, gem or spell that reduces damage taken by a percent then that would probably be OP.
The mechanic 'Reflect' is one I'd like to understand further as it will influence how I further approach the game. I did at one point see a fireball hit the Vanquisher and get reflected to its source where no damage was inflicted to the Vanquisher so if that's how the 'Reflect' mechanic works then thats really strong IMO.

Died trapped in a corner after pulling a lever by a swarm of the fast running skeletons (lvl 11)
I was using Wind of Justice to knock them off me but it didn't work as I had hoped in where it knocked them back at least long enough for me to do something else. This 'something else' was to change to Ricochet and blast at them, either swapping back to knock them away and repeat. It's possible that I could have gone about this differently by having a skill assigned to a number instead of both assigned to the right mouse button/Tab. Alternatively could have suspected this was going to be a trap and summoned zombies in preparation, taking some agro off me.
Ultimately I think this death was due to carelessness, getting sloppy and bad/slow reaction.

The next Vanquisher play-through could probably do without Wind of Justice. I didn't know what it did before I skilled it and the temptation to use it in a big fight to disperse mobs proved to be inadequate to handle mobs. The time it takes to cast is long enough that it more often than not needs to be pre-planned, which may be useful with a high cast speed. Also the knockback effect has the greatest effect on low grade mobs such as skeletons and much less impact on other mob types. The % chance to stun aspect of this skill could be useful if you max out Wind of Justice or at least up-skill it high enough for the 2 second AoE stun to either get you out of trouble or kill the mob.

This also brings up how little I understand the 'knockback' mechanic. If someone could shed some light on how it worked. I thought of this as I was looking at the Lightning Bomb skill under Arbiter for Vanquishers where it states "+5 Knockback". Which means what?
Does increasing having +70 knockback on an item mean more than +5?
Does having more mean that it pushes mobs back further or increase chance to knockback a set distance.
Chance to Knockback?, distance knocked back? Knockback resistance for mobs?
A combination of these idea's perhaps.

I think I'll save my skill points a little longer this time before I make decisions.
Going to spend my level up stats in a 3 Dex-2 Def ratio and see how that works out.
Aiming to get spells revolving around Heal All and Summon Zombies for the pet and for the Vanq. Summon Zombies and Identify Spell.
The idea for the Identify Spell came from Ringil at his successful VHHC Destroyer post: http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=4111
If you buy Identify Scrolls at 25g each then an Identify Spell costing you 3025g (I know it's low 3000g >_> ) would be the equivalent of 121 Identify Scrolls.

Third Vanquisher, Sarah Lee, in progress. Reached c-level 7, pre-Brink transformation. Haven't had as much luck as I'd like with items and spells though, currently running a 68 DPS pistol with shield due to lack of comparable alternatives. Couldn't find the Identify Spell at the shopkeeper but finding enough Identity Scrolls to forgo buying them. Pet has Flaming Sword 1 and Heal All 1 while Vanq. has Town Portal spell which I can see creating a profit for this character.
Items that increase missile range are very pleasant to use, makes a sniper out of a rifleman. The Goblin Warhounds have a charging attack that's really annoying to deal with, they been ignoring both the Pet and Brink. Goblin Chanters and Skeleton Archers are also really annoying, especially when they ignore the Pet and Brink ... hoping that the 'Reflect' mechanic will pay off if I ever get my hands on it.

Sarah Lee, c-level 9, had been saving up money and skills up till this point where upon returning from a dungeon to the Town, still unsatisfied with the damage of the pistol, went to the weapons seller to see if higher DPS weapons were available and found 3 that had significantly higher DPS than the currently equipped pistol. The highest DPS weapon, being a rare pistol with 184 DPS, the second was another rare pistol with 164 DPS and the third was a normal pistol with 131 DPS. However all 3 needed a higher c-level which lead to an investigation of the skills tree for answers/alternatives where the effects of the Ranged Weapons Expertise skill became very enticing ... more access to higher leveled and stronger weapons earlier ... at which 1 point was placed into Ricochet, giving it 100% weapon DPS, and 8 points into Ranged Weapons Expertise, taking -8 off ranged weapon requirements and adding a +32% damage to ranged weapon damage.
Quick though: Because skills (generally), such as Ricochet, scale off weapon DPS ... would increasing Ranged Weapons Expertise also increase damage from skills ...?
I brought the 164 DPS and 131 DPS pistols mostly due to these two reasons: 1) The 164 DPS pistol had more stats that I was interested in compared to the 184 DPS pistol that had stats like +mana and +magic while the 164 DPS pistol gave these stats: +6 ice dmg, +2 crit. hit chance, +15 knockback and 5% faster attack, and 2) the 131 DPS pistol was only 191 gold otherwise I'd have brought the 2 highest DPS pistols.

A dungeon portal was created and entered where two new types of mobs appeared, a glowing tree thing (Treebeard, is that you?) and Blood Disciples. I'm garnering a dislike for mobs that either have a dash or are ranged ... especially when they ignore my summoned mobs. I suspect that +knockback would help against dash and fast mobs but I'm not sure about large groups of mobs.
So far I'm like the Archer and Zombie summons. The Archer summon is new for me but the CD is low enough to have 6 skeleton archers out at a time. Essentially these summons are, for the most part, acting as a semi-meatshield semi-damage source.

Another thing I played around with were the fish. I haven't attempted to find out the formula that determine the stats of the transformed pet but I think the general gist of changes and what the transformed pet does (and the actions of the mob that the pet has transformed to) leads me to prefer some fish over others.
My level 8 pet has:
807 HP, 60 MP, 46-92 DMG and 31-62 Amr

All Elemental fish, those turning the pet into an Elemental saw the same change in stats but with different AoE damage type. Stat changes for my pet were
756 HP, 60 MP, 54-107 DMG and 27-53 Amr
Elemental pet was still attacking at melee range ....

The Webfish gave stats: 756 HP, 60 MP, 29-58 DMG and 22-44 Amr
In terms of stats, this fish transformation see's lower stats than the Elementals and to boot

The Batfish was gave stats: 1260 HP, 60 MP, 65-129 DMG and 17-33 Amr
This was just over a 55% increase in HP for the pet and a 50% increase in DMG while suffering a 50% drop in Amr. Melee, lacks AoE.

The Muckfish changed pet stats to: 1512 HP, 60 MP, 46-92 DMG and 25-50 Amr
Similar enough to the Batfish for me to mentally group them togethor, 'cept slightly more health, slightly less DMG and slightly more Amr. Melee, AoE Charge, Single target attacks.

Glooper fish gave stats: 2016 HP, 60 MP, 34-68 DMG and 21-42 Amr
Just over doubled the initial HP of the pet with DMG dropping 12-24 and Amr dropping 10-20.
Definitely more of a 'tank' or meatshield transformation.

Tunnel Shark gave stats: 3024 HP, 60 MP, 46-92 DMG and 31-62 Amr
The tankiest transformation yet at just over a 300% increase in HP, the same Amr and DMG and an AoE Electric skill.

[EDIT]I've died multiple times in the bonus maps now, this time due to some ranged mage mob not encountered in the main story.[/EDIT]

oK, so this time I have not been spending much time in purchasable maps. Defeated Brink about c-lvl 7 and went to Town to update my equipment. I had been using a lvl 4, 104 DPS rifle that I put into the shared stash as it has been the strongest ranged weapon available in all playthroughs at c-lvl 4.
This time I followed what I did last Vanq. runthrough and checked the weapons seller for any items that provided a considerable boost to DPS, of which I was in luck and found a c-lvl 10, 172 DPS rare rifle with 2 sockets, +6 Fire DMG and 14 HP stolen per hit. I put 4 skill points into Ranged Weapon Expertise, 2 skill point into Ricochet and 4 into Armor Expertise.
The character screen shows the character having: 638 HP, 63 MP, 106-211 Ranged DMG, 5% crit chance, 21 Def and 24-48 DMG absorbed. Resistances are 0 poison, 8 Fire, 5 Electric and 13 Ice.

The pet Summon Archers while the Vanq. has Frost I and Summon Zombies I.
This seems to be one of the safest options available in terms of playstyle given what I've seen and had available for use.

Level up points have been split 3Dex:2Def except for 5 points going to Magic in order to use a high defensive, 16 Armor, item early on, this item also provided 2 Dex and 2 Def.

Ice Elemental pet transformation is something I really like. From what I've seen of it, it mostly stay back, shooting mostly 3 slowing ice missiles and every now and then drops a huge ball of ice as a bomb.

I'd like to note that the Summon Zombies I, rank 1, has on it '5% Health stolen to Master' which means at the moment, c-lvl 10, they are healing me at 5HP each. Just something nice to have.

The NPC named Hatch provides some easy 2 floored map quests. I've done 3 of them since beating the mutated Brink and I'm finding them less risky than the level 1-10 maps that can be brought.

How valuable are gems? Is it worth buying them? They seem expensive for little gain. I understand that you can transmute them to become stronger so is it worth a VHHC character stocking up on them to transmute into something useable for later down the track, eg, fighting Ordrik, and if so which ones should be acquired for a Vanquisher? or in general?

Thoughts on using the spell Elemental Protection?

Am really hoping to get ahold of a Heal All spell or an Identify spell. They would be immensely helpful ...

I've been enchanting items that I been getting 'good feels' from. It seems to be paying off so far. I've fallen into a pattern that works, it's slow but careful.

Pet has Heal All I and Summon Archers, I have Frost I and Summon Zombies I. Progression through levels relies on making sure that zombies can be summoned just before engaging with mobs thus drawing agro, Pet runs into mobs and summons skeleton archers, Mobs get evaluated and appropriate action gets taken. Melee mobs generally have priority as they can be drawn away from the rest of the mobs and removed through the use of Ricochet, Frost and kiting. Next, if applicable, re-summon zombies and look for any ranged mobs to take out. Slower mobs generally have the lowest priority.

It seems that a lot of previous VHHC Vanquisher players have opted for a pistol and shield as the game goes on. I'll have to look into that and hope that I make the right call further down the line.

Over leveling seems to be a safe option for progression. I have a stack of around 10-15 maps of level 1-10 in the shared stash in order to (ab)use. There be little reason in rolling the dice with similar leveled mobs when stacks of low level mobs are just begging to give you free ride for gold and XP.
Then again, feel free to fkin throw level 12 mobs in a level 1-10 map ... kinda thought mobs were limited in level by the level of the map.

Going to need to really start trying to get stronger defensive items now as the game has started to create situations where 20+ mobs spawn around you in an enclosed space and if you can't get out or kill them in time then you get swamped to death.

As the game has gone on, I've been constantly thinking about how do I tell which stats to use on which items and have slowly worked into a mental habit of looking for items that contain defensive stats with priority in +HP, +Armor and +Resistance as staple stats. The thinking behind this has developed strongly from the idea never getting hit at all, in a sense this could be considered 'perfect play', however if I were to get hit (let alone have a mob crit me) then I'd both have a high enough HP, Armor and Resistances to safely soak up this (and more if this happens to occur). These 3 stats are also the most common defensive stats.

As I make progression through the game I'd really like to get more % chance to reflect % of missile DMG; also items with 'Physical & Elemental Damage Taken is reduced by %' as I can imagine having DMG reduced by a % to be absurdly strong as mobs start doing absurd amounts of DMG. Though as a side thought, it's probably better to not prioritise this unless it comes with an item with lots of +HP, plenty of +Armor and a good helping of +Resistances.
Simply put, +HP seems to be the most important defensive stat to attain.

The 'Q' key would not bind properly so I left it alone and moved things along to the right. It's a bit of a finger stretch and takes some getting used to but now its possible to access just about every command quicker than previously.

So far I've noticed in todays run-through that I'm grossly overleveled in comparison to main quest mobs; as a level 15 going up against level 6/7 mobs has been a breeze to say the least and I've found the desire to stack on armors and gems that increase DPS or crit but in terms of the long run against higher levels, these thoughts need to be let go so that focus on finding as much defence as possible barring the weapon itself.

I'm starting to look at building up a solid pile of gems to transmute in preparation for the later stages of the game.

Due to the spells that are equipped on pet and character, set pet to aggressive stance and summon zombies in front of you just before mobs see you as this causes zombies to draw mob agro. It's better to wait for Summon Zombie CD to finish rather than pushing ahead. Cast Frost and Web to slow any mobs that decide to chase you and fire
Ricochet freely from a safe distance.

In terms of mobs for the Post-Brink and Pre-Overseer's Chamber it's hard to detail how they compare with each other due to how overleveled this character is in comparison to them. Regardless Skeletons and Skeleton Archers have been the ones to actually hit me often due to Skeletons coming out from broken urns and barrels (and
me being lazy), and Skeleton Archers hit me pretty much because they are ranged. Skeletons are still the fastest mob encountered so far.
Otherwise I'd say that Spectres are the highest threat with their high HP and Teleport followed by Rotted Chanters who have fire missiles and summon Skeleton Warriors/Knights. Skeleton Archers also have a fairly high threat level when in large groups.

These are my comparisons of mobs met in this part, Post Brink Pre Overseer's Chamber, in comparison to each other. They are ranked by what I consider to be most threat with HP, DMG and Speed on a scale from 1-10 with 10 being highest/stronger/fastest. Anything with a '?' means that I haven't (or don't remember due to it being once off) been hit by this but this would be an estimate of how it scales.

Alright. Back on the horse!
New Vanquisher, Quinevere and her pet dog Greybeard.
Gonna smash out the early levels and more or less, as much as I can, follow what I did last playthrough as that seemed to be working or at least better than other attempts.

From what I can tell, I'm becoming more and more certain that when you have items stating 'x% Chance to Reflect 50% of Missile Damage', that it could more correctly be stated as 'x% Chance to Reflect, at 50% of Missile Damage'. Meaning that there are 2 aspects to this, first that you have a % chance of reflecting a missile, eg, Varkolyn Mage fire missiles and Skeleton Archer missiles, second that the reflected missile does 50% of its damage. I have come to this conclusion as I am more and more seeing ranged missiles being reflected back to its source without doing damage to me and this only happens when there is an item that states 'x% Chance to Reflect 50% of Missile Damage'.
From what I've read from other people who finished VHHC, it's highly recommended (if not required) to get as much as possible with 100% being most prefered.

Spectre teleported on my head and instakilled me ...

Back at it again. I've more or less got the Brink part of the game down pat and can do it fairly easy in about 60 minutes. Stuff like what items and drop does influence some aspects of how you progress.
So I'm pretty much following an established approach that at the very least works well on the first 2 stages of the game. Working straight all the way up to the Dank Chamber, porting to Town and doing a bonus map (unless it's too hard) for a bonus c-level then going back to beat Brink. After this do a couple bonus maps and Hatch's quests so that the Estherian part of the game becomes much easier. Heal All is very strong on the pet. I really like having a combination of mob summons and mob control spells/skills such as Web and Frost. I haven't been playing long enough or well enough to consider myself anywhere good enough to take solid VHHC advice from but I'm constantly running through what works, why/not and what other alternatives there are; A lot of what I'm doing has become brainstorming and looking at other posts in the forum.
Being able to concentrate well enough on the actions of each mob and how they deal damage, in addition to your own mobs, CD's and duration of animations really helps. Learning to run N' gun ('kite', 'shoot and scoot') pays you back in bountiful dividens as it so very often means that you can clear levels taking little or no damage, especially pre-Estheria, even when surrounded (if your character isn't in the middle of an animation/action, eg attacking, when the mobs attack animation begins then you can move out of the way and take no damage).

I'm back to the Estherian part again, no sweat this time. I'm begginning to see why the spell Dervish gets liked by VHHC players.

There are 'secret' areas in the Estherian Ruins which has a moss or vine covering them. I've found one, found it twice now in the middle portal (Floor 12) through the north side of the map. I was keeping an eye out for changes in the water blocks, where there normally isn't anything and I noticed giant blocks underneath the surface so followed them to the vine covered gap in the wall to find an area full of fish (after clearing out mobs) and a chest. I've found the same area full of fish twice out of the two times I've got here.

Finished the Estherian part at c-level 19.
I have been recently following a process of reasoning in that if the stats on the item do not directly relate to the increased survival of the character then disregard the stat as useless.
This manner of reasoning still has flaws but it greatly helps in making decisions of which item to equip.
At the very least it helps decision making on my part due to my current approach of thought being likened to 'all possibilities need to be considered' and reduces thoughts such as 'having this +150% Magic Find on my character will help me find better items'. If it doesn't keep you alive (in the goal of this VHHC character successfully defeating Ordrak), it can be disregarded ... although no doubt a +150% Magic Find item would be amazing ...
I'm not completely satisfied with this line of thought and it needs tweaking, especially in regards to resistances as this character has minimal resistance to elemental damage as items with higher +HP and +Armor (and even % chance to Reflect) have taken priority.

As current, I have no way of determining 'good' progress except that this character hasn't died yet.

Entered the Tu'Tara Caverns. Feeling nervous. Not sure how big a difficulty spike there will be here.

**** WHY DID I EVEN WORRY? I'm 8 LEVELS AHEAD OF THEM!!

I'd just done a bonus map with mobs at level 19 and for some reason thought that these main quest mobs would be stronger ... nope, they're level 12.
Doesn't mean that they don't do damage though.

Been playing around with the pistol and shield combination and definately can see benefit to this, much clearer to me than earlier in the game. Shields tend to be getting stats like %chance to block and % chance to Reflect which really do help.

Ember Colossus defeated easily. Managed to draw it away from all the elementals (out of panic lol) where it got distracted by the pet and summons and made easy pickings. I used Web to try slow it and I don't think it was effective as the colossus walked over it easy, its jumping attack was dodged by first staying at the very tip of my weapon range and running away when it crouched down. Shortly before it died it did a laser beam attack which for some reason did no damage to me (didn't see any red numbers pop up).

I have now a equipped a 2-handed Recurve Bow and a 1-handed pistol, Dismantling Epic Rickety Pistol (D.E.R.P). Now I bring this up because I've found a disparity in how they deal damage either per individual shots or per skill use.
I noticed that the bow was doing, on average, less damage per hit compared to the pistol yet on the other hand was doing more damage per skill use.

This is how I tested the weapons. I entered a level 1-10 map and kept sending my pet to town with as minimal items as I could just to keep him out of the way then spent time comparing the average damage range that the weapons did. I ended up chosing a 90 point range on the basis that 100 felt too vague and just about anything smaller felt too imprecise. Not that this method is exactly precise or accurate or well thought out ...
Damage and Armor seem to be fairly random within a certain range, similar to a dart board where if you aim for the center (without being physically unco-ordinated or professional) would expect to get within the inner circle of the dart board most of the time.

Now enough damage is being done with both weapons on level 9 skeletons to one-shot each mob so in that sense I am not taking into consideration the effect of the 24 Armor Degraded per Hit that's on the pistol.

With individual shots with the Bow produced a damage range between: 250-340 DMG.
With individual shots with the Pistol produced a damage range between: 290-380 DMG

When using Ricochet, the bow has been producing higher numbers than the pistol.
Pistol produced an average damage range between 450-650.
Bow produced an average damage range between 550-750.

So I'm concluding that skills, such as Ricochet, produce damage based off Weapon DPS and can be influenced by +% casting speed.
However some weapons produce greater individual on hit damage as opposed to damage over time. Not sure how this works out in regards to everything else.

Molten Prison, Floor 21
Level 17 Creatures
Character level 24

Things are becoming fairly rote

Prison Stronghold
Level 19 Creatures
Character level 28

[edit]
Krag defeated.
I played really passively to start with, barely going past the gate into the arena. Eventually noticed the 3 Chanters bringing up Stabbers and healing Krag. Played a cat-mouse game where I'd run out avoiding everything except for brief moments where I'd use Ricochet to take a shot or two at the Chanters and Stabbers, or use these brief moments to summon zombies. Eventually the Chanters died, no more stabers, plenty of relaxed carefree time to pound away at Krag.
[/edit]

One hint:
The creature LEVELS found in map dungeons are NOT limited to the levels in the titles of the maps.
The map levels tell you what tilesets (backgrounds, environments) you will encounter in that map dungeon.
The TYPES of critters encountered will be (mostly) limited by the tileset encountered.

The map dungeons DO have a level cap RELATED to the top level in the title of the map, but it is way higher than the map title.
For instance, I seem to recall that Level 1-10 map dungeons will critter cap at about m-level 27-28.

In any random dungeon, the critter level will be set according to YOUR character level at the time you enter the random dungeon.
In map dungeons, it will always be set to ONE critter LEVEL BELOW your character's current level...with one potentially huge caveat.
The critter level in any random map dungeon will never be set to less than the minimum m-level of the environment tileset.
Examples:
Map 1-10:
Mines - Critter level 1 to 27, depending on your character level;
Tombs - Critter level 4 to 27, depending on your character level, even if you are entering with a c-lvl 1 character (survivable if careful, you will level up fast);
Estheria - Critter level 7 to 27, depending on your character level, even if you are entering with a c-lvl 1 character (this is sudden death for most lvl 1/2 characters - best advice: Leave).

FWIW, about 4 c-level overlevel for the current dungeon seems to provide a good play experience/survivability...until you reach the Black Palace. Then you're going to want 5-7 levels overlevel on your first VHHC, with a lot of buffing of Elecrical, Poison, and Fire resistance.

Also, for my money, swap your assignment of Heal All and Frost spells. Pets use Frost very effectively, and not entirely randomly - they will aim it at targets, even targets that are off the board. Pet use of Heal All is entirely random, or at best based on their own current hurts, and recall that they will not use it at all if they are panicked/fleeing. Not what you need from such a powerful sustainment Spell.

Definitely noticed this about the maps though wasn't sure if it was once off thing or otherwise.
I actually stopped doing Hatches quests due to finding it just that little too risky in having to play through the tilesets with near equal level monsters. Goal is to defeat Ordrick, not finish all Hatches quests.

I've got a couple of concerns that I'd like to ask you while you're hanging around.
Is there a playstyle or combination of Spells/Skills/builds that have been found to be most effective for Vanquishers in VHHC? For example, I know that there have been discussions on whether to use pistols/shields or 2-hand weapons; Would Web work in place of Frost?
Is there a way to influence how effective your weapons and armors are? Like do map levels/tilesets influence item drop levels? or should I be looking at enchanting and gems for defense and offense?

Spells: Heal All (I use it more than potions - mana is free); Fireball (in early levels, or on pet as substitute for Frost; Frost; Flaming Sword (note that this is an Offensive, aided by OSM not CSM); Skeleton Warrior VI or Blood Skeleton (I favor Skeleton VI over Bloods, but find your own comfort); Dervish; Identify (not essential of course, but much more convenient)

Many other combos of the above work.

Weapon improvement:
In a word - enchant. Search forums for "enchanting", or search for my handle to find rather involved guidelines. Don't get wedded to items; be prepared to dis-enchant a few times and to grind some shrine enchanting to make the best stuff.

Optimising Weaps and Armor:
Learn whats available. Watch for it. Learn to read the Gambler's merchandise generic icons. Gamble for the best stuff; its quicker than crawling for it once you've got some money. Go to www.torchlightarmory.com and browse for knowledge.

Choice of Equip/Fight Styles for Vanq:
*Most folks probably favor pistol/shield.
*Pistol/"stat stick" melee weapon - left hand/right hand - can work well, too.
*I favor fast rifle, or a compromise speed/power crossbow, for the standoff range. Speed/power crossbows are basically Windlasses & Arbalests - enchanted futher, of course. Fastest rifles are Volley Gun, Organ Gun, Ribaldequin - original speed is more important than original damage if you are going to further enchant the rifle...and you are.
*Melee Vanq (Sword/Axe/Shield, Polearm, Staff) can be fun but a definite challenge at deeper levels. But that is what those wonderful Venoumous Dirks are for.

Web:
Web is a good spell, but I do not favor it over Frost. It is better in constricted spots, perhaps, but it is pretty short duration, and requires a certain smart battle rhythm to use effectively. The pet CANNOT use Web as effectively as Frost.

Drops, and Acquiring Better Stuff; Gambling:
Higher level bosses drop better stuff. But it will always be mixed with lots of mundane-er stuff.
Best bet for some control over acquiring best stuff - Gambler.
There are good gambling guidelines elsewhere in forums. Search on "gambler", "gambling", or even on my handle. I've expounded a couple of times in years past.

Gems:
Get them. Use them in all sockets.
Horde them until you can transmute smaller ones into bigger ones.
Of Embers, I think Pure Embers are best for Vanqs (weapons), but Skulls and <purple> Embers are great too.
Almost all the Embers are useful, depending on character / gear choices.
Only Chaos Gems to use are +Crit (great!) and +Speed (not too shabby). Sell the others.
The Cold Embers should be used every where if you decide to try that Cold optimized Vanq build.

Thanks dreamrider,
It's given me a bit to think about.
At the moment I plan to push through the main quest and bring the level difference a bit closer.
I noticed for summons that you didn't include the zombies. I haven't played around with summons, is there a reason why you'd take a Skeleton Warrior over 3 Zombies?

I haven't got time to play at the moment but when I do, i'll go over everything again

[edit]That took around 10 minutes to do ... He had a tonne of health and resistances on him. I'm lucky he got stuck/engaged with minions and pet at one point or else that would have gone for longer[/edit]

I created a VHHC Destroyer and decided to try out the Shadow Vault and in the 2nd floor, a Lost Fortress tileset, where I got hit by a Deathwalker Battlemaster and noticed that on the character sheet that my defence was in the red.
I assume that all Deathwalker Battlemasters reduce character defence on hit?
Any other mobs who do this or something similar?

I have used all three types of minions at different times, depending on what came my way. I tend to favor skels because they will keep up with fast movement. It is pretty easy to leave pet-cast zombies behind, either going forward or retreating, and the pet won't re-cast them and dismiss the old ones until they time out.

Also, there is a little trick to having a horde of 5 skels around. If your pet is transmorphed into certain forms, the skels stick around a bit longer, and the horde can get up to 5. If the combat is fairly heavy, the pet will keep casting often enough that you always have a squad of 4-5 skels. Skels sustain longer when the pet is either a Thorned Minion or a Lurker. (Seems like there may be one other form that has longer duration skels, but I can't recall which at the moment.) Thorned Minion is more durable than the Winged Lurker, but the Thorn guy blocks Ricochet shots and the Lurker does not...kinda toss up, or situational. Oh, and Thorned Minion has more annoying sound effects.

High level archers are nice, with up to, what, 8 archers? But the damage they do doesn't keep up with the tendency to leave them behind at high levels.
I might favor Archers as a summons on the CHARACTER at high levels, because you can re-cast to move their array to your next selected spot. Also they are good for drawing mobs into an ambush.

For general purposes, though, assigning a Spell and using it on the run in multiple situations, I think high-level skellies are the most flexible.

Phase Portals - Cast all your best buffs just before/after you go in. Freeze in place to kill everything you can see. Inch forward and retreat to choke points. Clear the area and wait to fully recharge, re-buff before easing out the next bit. With a Vanq, DON'T voluntarily melee with even mundane critters in a Phase dungeon, unless you know that dungeon pattern REALLY well, and are HIGHLY confident of your armor, res. Throw traps through every door, ahead of every advance. Note that sometimes you can throw flechette traps THROUGH gates, ricktey doors, on top of ledges, etc. Arrow Hail is your friend, even if it takes a long time. If you run back toward the entry point, chasers will string out, becoming good Ricochet or Ice Pilium target strings. It is not cowardly to kill everything you can see from a protected doorway, corner, or ledge; it is SMART!; they out number you dozens to one, they are near same level, and a crit from any one of them, especially a boss, will kill you. And finally, perfect your agility: run, shoot, run, cast, run, shoot, hope the pet Frost slows them down.

After the first few levels, however, Phase Portals will provide some of your best loot, because they are at you character level, with loot up to a level or two above that, rather than trailing 4-7 levels behind your character.

Dang! I'd forgotten how much I love this game!

BTW, If I haven't mentioned it before, keep some fish (your choice) on a hot key. Transmorphing your pet is the quickest way to restore all its hit points (and sometimes more.) Burrowers give the pet the most hit points, toughness, but Goblinhounds aren't bad on hit points, and their dash attack is devastating. But any fish transmorph will restore hit points, both morphing, and 2 minutes later un-morphing. Keeping the pet in the fight also ties up some of the apposing mobs, allowing you to shoot, cast, maneuver, etc.

Red on defense means it is temp degraded for some reason. Yes, it can happen from some other critters. I have never figured out the exact mechanism, but I think it is the same as your own weapon buffs that reduce enemy armor, res.

My solution? Stay back and shoot them with a big crossbow...a lot. Or Venomous Dirks, or WoJ. Not getting hit is the best armor for Vanqs.

Its not like I've never used an exploit that the game allowed in the course of otherwise vanilla play.
In fact, I'm about half convinced that the somewhat more persistant skellies that you get with a Thorned Strider or Lurker pet are "an unintentional feature".
I still take advantage, since it isn't ME that is twisting the game code.

Likewise the fact that that enchants on very fast weapons build up DPS much more effectively than enchants on slower, more powerful weapons.
Or (one of the biggest) the fact that with max Barter + about +5-7% "better prices" buffs on some gear, you can trade some items back and forth and make essentially unlimited money.
(Unlimited GP leads to unlimited gear collecting from the Blacksmith & (heh, heh) Gambler, and buying all the gems that show up in the bazaar. Unlimited enchanting, also, but you get better enchantments by returning to re-spawned Shrines - Enchanter still has his uses though, like putting on some sockets before you get into serious enchanting of an item.)

Oh, it was an apology about not having anything further to add to your posts

But the glitch was cool, I'll try replicate it when I get to another known cutscene.

The mobs debuffing your armor is kinda puzzling to me, it seems like it should be more important than how I'm perceiving it but I can't help but see it somewhat irrelevant especially if your goal is essentially to not be hit at all, at which case you're doing something wrong. Otherwise it does seem to work the same way your own weapons reduce mob armors as you stated.
Could be a really big problem for melee focused builds/characters ...

I've decided to play as a melee vanquisher. VHHC.
Currently c-level 8 and have only used 1 mastery point, Armor Expertise, in order to equip some boots that were just a level too high.
I've ended up using some higher grade equipment from previous HC runs that I'm cumulating on one 'storage' character which is helping but sadly didn't get access to it before fighting Brink which ended up taking way too long to do (I estimate it took 5-10 minutes).
I'm putting stats in favour of STR and DEF in a ratio of 2:3.
Otherwise I'm going to leave skills unleveled 'till I get a better grasp of how to play as a melee vanquisher

I say again:
Venomous Dirks / WoJ
Hamstring when available (maybe just one level)
Traps, but wait til Flechette Trap is available to decide what combo
Crit Strikes, Armor Expertise, Block & Parry!, Pet Mastery, Charm Mastery (unless you are skipping minions as well), Melee Weaps Expertise
The dart fan thing is a good low-level Skill for a melee girl (but once you get a couple levels of Ven Dirk, you'll never use it again).
later, Arrow Hail, for when you care enough to send the very best.

Consider a pistol/"stat stick" (good sword or axe) combo, along with Dual Wield. Do not go Dual Wield if you are committed to a X + shield combo; you don't gain anything from it unless there is a weapon in both hands.

I hadn't used any skill points yet or changed armor/weapons till c-level 15 and found the floors 12-14 to have too many potion chugging close calls. When I got to c-lvl 15 Flechette traps have been very effective, don't need to participate in fights as much anymore. I've maxed Armor Expertise as mobs start to hit uncomfortably hard. Spiders and Thorned Striders are difficult to fight compared to Stabber Pygmies due to spiders having a faster attack timing and the Treants (Thorned Striders but forever Treants in my eyes) have longer attack range. I have been using Needle Arc but it's low damage is unpleasant

Put your cursor on the target just like any other weapon. Several of the forward "dirks" (really, they look like pointy, wavy poison bolts) will head directly for the target - at longer ranges, if there are no other targets around, you may get all of them homing on that target. Otherwise, without a designated target, the ring of magic dirks (there are about eight of them in each cast) will home individually on any surrounding targets of opportunity.

Oh, yeah. These things are piercing, as well. They will punch right through several targets, homing on each one in succession, until they run out of range...which I don't know exactly, but it is longer than standard pistol shot.

...and the mana cost is pretty low.

My second favorite way of clearing a room - after Flechette Trap. OK...also after Arrow Hail. But definitely my third favorite way! (And on a high level character it may be better, or at least quicker, than either of those - I think the damage scales better.)

Be aware that Ven Dirks scales with Str (100%), Dex (100%), and DPS, though. So keep building up one or the other of those Attributes, and carry the biggest DPS weapon in your arsenal, even if you aren't using it very often directly.